This past weekend’s StarCityGames.com Open Series Legacy tournament in Philadelphia clocked in at over 230 players, culminating in an interesting and diverse Top 16. Today, we’ll take a look at the breakdowns and especially, consider various builds of the same archetypes. The theme you will find running throughout the decks is “consistency” because, after nine rounds of play and then a playoff, the decks that can routinely pull off the same plan over and over tend to rise to the top. Take a look at the final decklists, and especially make use of the deck comparison button at the bottom of each page; you can get a quick view of how two close decks differ.
Zoo and Company
With five Zoo-like decks in the T16, the perennial cheap, fightin’ grind of a deck has represented very well here, compared to previous StarCityGames.com Legacy Opens. Congratulations are in order for Matt Elias, who also writes here and will give us a rundown on his performance, no doubt. Many of the decks were running Loam Lion, the white Kird Ape. Asher Hecht’s fifth-place deck runs the Worldwake kitty alongside traditional Apes, in part because his deck is very white-focused. In addition to a full four Path to Exile, he also packs Lightning Helix and a pair of our favorite kithkin advisor, Cedric Phillips Gaddock Teeg. Teeg shuts down recursive Engineered Explosives, which is generally a big pain against Zoo, and he also gives fits to combo decks. As just a bear, Gaddock is definitely below the power curve in Zoo, but Asher has so much creature removal that he can run a weaker creature and still fight well in Zoo games. I see the integration of Gaddock Teeg into Zoo to be an eventuality, as the format moves toward cards like Engineered Explosives (especially in Lands).
Asher also packs Burning-Tree Shaman in his deck, ostensibly over Knight of the Reliquary. The knight can go get Horizon Canopy to draw into more burn and dudes and can get really huge on its own; the Shaman has a more subtle effect on the board. He’ll always be a 3/4 creature and the damage he does isn’t always obvious. For one, Shaman makes just about anything a player does into a painful move. A fetchland is going to cost you, flipping that Sensei’s Divining Top will ping, and even a cycled Tranquil Thicket can limit options. It is a number-one enemy against a deck like Lands, because even if the Lands player has a pair of Maze of Ith active and they have a Life from the Loam going, you have them on a clock. Zuran Orb will net one life (and your burn will resolve first, meaning that it will do no good if they are at one life point).
The Burning-tree Shamans are also decent against other decks, though they pack a much smaller punch. They still punish opponents for Wastelands and Fetchlands, man-land activations and Grim Lavamancer pings. Cedric Phillips wrote recently about playing the Shaman in Zoo and pointed out how it was a clincher against Merfolk, which could not win, even with an active and charged Umezawa’s Jitte on the field. Like I said, it limits a player’s options.
Players have not come to a conclusion about whether the Shaman or Knight of the Reliquary is better in the 3-drop spot. The Knight is simply monstrous, and though it cannot get Wastelands in a Zoo deck, it still feeds itself with lands, so it can get large in a short time on an early board. My suggestion is that you should play Zoo with the Shaman a lot to get a good sense of just how often it triggers. Play against many different decks and keep track of the damage that the Shaman does to the opponent (and yourself). At the end, you can make a determination, based on how much damage the Shaman did, about whether it will be effective against decks that you expect to face. If the Shaman would do less damage than an average-sized Knight, then you probably want to run the latter. The Shaman is clearly better against decks like CounterTop and Lands than it is against Ad Nauseam and Merfolk.
Finally, Robert Cusick ran a Cat Sligh deck that will remind you of Goyf-Sligh decks. It has the hallmark Reckless Charge, but splashes white to charge up Wild Nacatl and play Path to Exile and Steppe Lynx. Serious people will debate whether it is a separate archetype or whether it is just a Zoo variant. Sligh-style decks tend to play more suicidally fast, sometimes going for an opening that starts with Goblin Guide and follows up with a recklessly-charging Steppe Lynx or Nacatl. Without a fast way to respond, an opponent will be dead in two turns or less. Reckless Charge sometimes makes three damage, sometimes it deals more with the Haste aspect, and sometimes it gives great reach because it can flash back for at least three more damage. It’s too conditional for a lot of Zoo players, but for those who are just aiming to be fast, it does more to the opponent than a Lightning Bolt will.
Bant, Countertop, and why New Horizons is our new Tempo Thresh
Two CounterTop decks showed up in the top 4, which is an incredible showing that demonstrates how well the Coldsnap enchantment can handle the format. Jim Orr and Jesse Hatfield both packed the soft-lock combo in their lists, with Jim running the supplemental Natural Order and Jesse opting instead for a creature-light, but removal-heavy list. Jim’s deck is perfect for mashing aggro decks; those Rhox War Monks make attackers look pitiful and his hydra-crush capability with Progenitus means he can totally out-man an aggressive opponent. While Jesse’s deck looks better made to handle a Reanimator opponent, Jim’s deck would give fits to aggressive decks. If you are split between the two, consider your metagame and choose appropriately. When all else fails, “Protection from Everything” solves a lot of problems.
We’ve considered Tempo Thresh, also known as Canadian Threshold, to be a tight little threshold variant that can punish mana stalls effectively. It does decently well in events, but it’s hindered by having kind of bad cards in the deck — Lightning Bolt and Fire/Ice do a job, but they’re never glamorous. New Horizons (and I so wish this deck was named more descriptively) packs larger, beefier creatures alongside the Stifle/Daze/Force of Will trio that made Canadian Threshold so good. It needs three mana to cast its Terravores and Knights of the Reliquary, but when they hit, it rarely needs a followup. Knight can make four Wastelands in a row, stalling out an opponent or setting up a stopper for the Maze of Ith or Academy Ruins that threatens them.
In that sense, New Horizons is a Tempo Thresh variant; it attacks the manabase and tries to land a big monster to ride. Sounds kind of like ErhnamGeddon from a decade ago, right? This deck is going to be solid in any large event because you can earn easy wins by just manascrewing an opponent who should have mulliganed better or fetched the wrong land. You absolutely must play against this deck in your gauntlet because it has a cohesive plan of mana denial that you’ve got to be prepared for. Much like you needed to deal with Goblin Lackey in 2008, you need a solution for Stifle, Wasteland, Terravore at this time.
Blue Lands
It seems that, either through player preference or sheer superiority, Blue Lands has taken over from traditional RWG Lands in the deck archetype. Two players performed very well at this event, showcasing both a standard and adventurous list. Kurt Spiess made only a few modifications to Chris Woltereck successful list from SCG: Indianapolis, with both he and Ken Adams making room for a certain legendary Venezuelan capital city, chiefly to bounce Iona, Shield of Emeria. Both players also went for Ensnaring Bridge in their maindeck, which, with Manabond, can completely lock out an attacking opponent. I have been on the fence about Ensnaring Bridge; it certainly shuts down a lot, but it’s awkward to tutor for and plays a similar role to Glacial Chasm. You definitely need a Bridge or a Chasm, but probably not both. Since the latter is a land and has general synergies that Bridge lacks, I am inclined to maindeck the Chasm first.
Ken’s deck makes a lot of sacrifices to run Living Wish and Volrath’s Stronghold, an idea previously floated in a response to one of my columns and discussed in the forums by Evan Erwin and company. Living Wish gives access to another Tabernacle and a lot of interesting options, like Fleshbag Marauder against Reanimator. The plan is to tutor for Volrath’s Stronghold and have a lock-down on opponents with creatures. To get this to work, Ken cut a Maze of Ith that he didn’t subsequently put on the sideboard and he shaved down a Manabond, one of the deck’s most busted cards. Cutting a Manabond seems merely okay because with more spells, you’re less likely to want to toss all those cards to blow up your board presence.
I’ve never seen Living Wish sideboards work that well, even in the hands of Patrick Chapin and LSV, and I am really trying to like this one and cannot. The plan against Reanimator is to Living Wish for a Faerie Macabre when the opponent is probably setting their Iona to green? This sideboard looks too clever by half and it results in having to cut down on a lot of generally useful sideboard cards and dilute a maindeck for a card that wishes it were just another land. I would love to be proven wrong, since this deck looks really cute and that makes me want to play it, but I don’t see it performing better than regular Blue Lands. I do, however, really like Ken’s use of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to make his Mindslaver more likely to activate. In testing, I messed around with Riftstone Portal a lot to get the thirteen mana necessary for recursion. Tapping a Tabernacle for mana feels like seriously cheating.
Wrapping Up The Top 16
I am really excited to see Kemper Pogue’s Merfolk deck because it closely mirrors a European Merfolk list that I have been testing with recently. It skips the Stifles and packs Coralhelm Commander in for more attackers. The Commander has been devastating in testing; “flipping” him is a very simple affair, and Merfolk often has one or two mana that it is not using. The lack of Stifle means that Kemper doesn’t have to bluff a blue mana and can instead, make his adventurer into a flier or a beefy lord. Meanwhile, Paul Lynch’s deck takes a white tack for Sejiri Merfolk and Swords to Plowshares, which give him a definite advantage in aggro matchups. Remember that with a lord in play, the Sejiri will often have lifelink, first strike and at least three or four power. That’s a serious creature to try and ram Wild Nacatls past!
Eric Mason’s Ad Nauseam list reflects a conflict in combo players; namely, should you run a second Ad Nauseam or an Ill-gotten Gains? The latter is great against aggro decks that could pack in too much damage for the black instant to draw you into a game-winner. The Ad Nauseam is better against decks that can put enough pressure on you so that you must cast Ad Nauseam into possible counterspells; in effect, it gives you a reload. His list is very clean and I will be adapting it in my testing against combo (and yes, you do have to test this match…).
Nate Chafe’s Countertop Thopters list is derived from several similar lists, by Extended players like AJ Sacher who know how fine the Thopter Foundry combination is in Extended. Combined with Sword of the Meek, Thopter Foundry makes a pile of tokens and a stack of life. It’s less disruptable than a dedicated creature deck and can sit back with Counterbalance, nailing a card here and there while eventually, buying back a lot of lost life and aggression with its token machine. You’ll note that Enlightened Tutor can snag cards up to four mana in this deck, making its Counterbalance into a much harder lock than usual CounterTop lists can create.
Finally, Louis Gentile’s Scapeshift deck is fascinating. He uses Burgeoning as a weaker Exploration, aiming to get seven lands into play so that he can Scapeshift and kill his opponent with Valakut, The Molten Pinnacle and five or six mountains. I’ve tried to make Scapeshift work in Legacy and I’m glad to see someone give it a legitimate run. Louis can default to a Lands plan, using Life from the Loam and Gamble to shut down an opponent’s mana and develop his board into a successful attacking position. His Bojuka Bogs are better than they are in Lands (that is, they’re actually worth playing) because he can Crop Rotation for them at instant speed and wipe an opponent’s graveyard at little cost. I would like a third Tranquil Thicket in the list, because the Life from the Loam combination with the card means that you can see a serious amount of lands, but I can tell that space is tight in the deck.
Conclusions and Preparations for Summer Events
You’ll note a conspicuous absence of Reanimator decks. Jared Sylva will provide us with exact numbers later in the week, but my guess is that Reanimator showed up but performed poorly. The decks in the Top 16 pack serious graveyard removal and many of them also have ways to get rid of Iona, Shield of Emeria. Don’t sleep on Reanimator for a second, because this is not a sign that it is going away. When players skip out on legitimate sideboard hate cards, you will see the UB monster back again.
I will be taking the New Horizons, monoblue Merfolk, Natural Order Bant and Ad Nauseam lists from this event to put into my gauntlet. You have a good chance of seeing all of these decks at larger events. While it’s meaningful to test against Blue Lands, the deck costs literally one brazillion dollars to assemble and testing probably will really only matter when you get to the playoff rounds, since you will statistically miss it in the Swiss rounds. Since Matt Elias did so well with Zoo and has many readers of his column, I expect a lot of his Zoo list to be floating around. Be prepared for a first-turn Steppe Lynx or a Scapeshift into Valakut!
Until next week…
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